Domestic Goddess in Training - A Tale of two cakes - the cake that cried

Well, I did it.

 I tweaked.

And look

It's red going in

And it's red coming out.

So, what I did was decrease the cocoa powder by 10grams and increase the flour by 10grams and I increased the baking powder as well. It was meant to only be by 1gram but 3grams found their way in. Then I increased the red food colouring by a half.  And it went red.  So proud of self.

And then -  I had to go and ice it!!!

First I put the butter cream frosting in the middle and on the outsides

this is not how it is supposed to look

but never mind no-one would see because I was going to cover it with ready to roll icing





like this

Now, what I should have done is cut the icing downwards and outwards and what I did was cut it downwards and inwards and that is why it looks like a ball.  Which isn't at all right.  But it was late at night and I was very tired and I should really have been in bed - so what did I do. 

Why, I carried on and decorated it of course

like this

 In the original recipe the spots were delicate little things but I couldn't find any round cutters small enough. 

And then I found the melon baller. 

Just a pointer - a melon baller may look like a little circle but when it is used to cut out red circles which are then placed on a white background - the red circles become huge.  When this happens it is not a good idea to carry on using  the original number of circles.  Spatial awareness - nil points.

Tip of the day - if you can't get coloured sugar paste, which is what the recipe calls for, and decide to use the white ready to roll icing and food colouring - do not - repeat - do not - dip the cut out shape in a dish of food colouring and then stick it onto the cake.  If you do this will happen

it will run - like this



 and you can't wipe it off or cover it up.  I know.  I tried.

So for the next spots I used the same food colouring but painted them with a pastry brush and then stuck them on the cake and waited - a short while.  Nothing ran.  Hah, I thought, I might be getting the hang of this domestic goddess business at last.

I finally packed up and crawled into my bed.

I had a dream. 

I dreamt  my white icing had turned red.  I so was disturbed by this occurrence I woke up and staggered into the kitchen to inspect the cake.  I lifted the lid of the tin and peered myopically inside.  I was relieved to see the icing was still white.  I  staggered back to bed and   sleep.

In the morning I again  lifted the lid of the cake tin to gaze proudly at my newly decorated small tier  red velvet cake to find

my cake had cried



Quite a few of the red circles had run during the night. 

I'm obviously not getting as good as I thought,  slow running food colouring hadn't occurred to me.  Ah well, nothing I could do about it - so I just packed it ready to take to AJ's with me.

MG had fun putting all the candles she could find on the cake despite her mother's protestations that she wasn't that old.

and it tasted quite nice.


So, all in all, it was an almost successful cake.  And I learnt a lot about the liquidity of food colouring.

It's my Mum's birthday next  week and I'm going to make it again for her because practise makes perfect.  My plan this time is to paint the decorations with food colouring and this time let them  dry before putting them on the cake.

We shall see.............